Funny Little World
by Heimarmene
Summary: Blaine Anderson's got everything. He's still head-over-heels for Kurt, whom he's planning on proposing to. He's suddenly become the indie scene's hottest new act. He's living the dream and for a minute everything is almost too perfect - and he's completely fine with that. But when a car accident completely rewires his brain, he wakes up madly in love...with one Lucy Quinn Fabray.
1. Of Quitters & Winners

Lucy Quinn Fabray was _not_ a quitter.

Fortunately, neither was Blaine Anderson.

When life spit on them – him liking boys, for example, or her having a drunken one-night stand that led to many, many other things – they persevered, in their own quiet ways. Even when he transferred schools to be with Kurt, they never really acknowledged each other. They were in Glee club together which automatically made them friends, but beyond that, they were complete strangers. When they graduated high school, they went their separate ways, never heard from each other again, and that was that.

Our story starts five years after that. It begins with an accident, climaxes with a death, and maybe even ends with a happily ever after. But let's focus on the beginning for now.

The date is December 13, 2017. We are in New York City. It's snowing heavily. The roads are as icy as the devil's skin is red. Somewhere in downtown Manhattan, a grungy yellow taxicab loses control and skids into the side of a showy red Porsche. The Porsche veers off the road from the impact and ends up crumpled into the front of a movie theatre. Inside, the twenty-three year old driver is struggling to stay conscious. We watch as he succumbs to the darkness just as the paramedics arrive.

And so begins the story of Blaine and Lucy.


	2. Of Old Friends & Movie Posters

Blaine Anderson wasn't really a nostalgic kind of guy. Sure, sometimes he liked to curl up on the couch with only a beer for company and flip through his high school yearbooks, but for the most part, he preferred living in the moment. You can't change the past, but you can make a difference in the future, that was his belief. He lived in New York, for Pete's sake – the city of living in the moment. Even Kurt, who was possibly _the_ most sentimental, nostalgic person Blaine knew, had acknowledged that when they'd made the decision to buy a Manhattan apartment together after graduation.

Naturally, Kurt and Rachel – who was their other roommate – had insisted on plastering the walls of the penthouse with pictures of all their glee club friends, in high school and in the present. True, most of the pictures were of Rachel and Kurt doing various things together – there was a whole hallway, in fact, solely devoted to the two of them – and that made it a little hard to be his normal non-nostalgic self, but with Kurt's constant gossipy chatter about where the formal glee clubbers were now, he found it was pretty easy to get over.

Not to say he didn't love his boyfriend of six years – he loved Kurt with all his heart, and sincerely doubted that was about to change anytime soon. He was even fairly fond of Rachel and all her drama, which had considerably lessened in the five years since they'd left Lima, Ohio. He missed his old friends, sure, but he'd never really been all that close to them. He'd always elected to spend most of his time with Kurt, and by extension, Finn and Rachel.

Actually, Finn was the only one who Blaine still kept in contact with. Four years ago, Finn had finally had enough of Rachel's driving need for drama and the spotlight and had broken up with her for the last time. Blaine had felt sorry for Rachel and all, but he'd respected the big guy for standing up for himself and not letting himself be walked all over for the rest of his life. Finn had gotten a lot of flack for the breakup, and Blaine had gotten a lot of flack for supporting it, and they'd kind of bonded over that. Not to mention that Blaine was dating Finn's sort-of brother, so they would've kept in touch anyways, but Blaine preferred to think of them as friends.

He knew Finn had met and married girl from Kurt's NYADA classes a while after that, and Rachel – in a shocking turn of events – had gotten together with Puck. They were currently engaged. Blaine supposed their individual insanity balanced each other out, but even Kurt still had a hard time wrapping his head around that one. Other than that, though, Blaine really had no idea how any of their old friends were doing.

That was probably why he was so shocked one night when he glanced out the passenger side window of his Porsche on December 13 on his way home from the recording studio and realized that the green-eyed, brunette woman looking kick-ass and beautiful on the gigantic movie poster by the theatre was none other than one Quinn Fabray.

_()()()_

Lucy Fabray didn't normally like spending copious amounts of time with Rachel Berry – hell, she barely remembered to send the woman a birthday card every year – but Rachel had called her earlier that day sounding so pathetically starved for companionship, she'd herself agreeing to a girls' day out before she could say no. That's how she found herself sitting in a cozy, out-of-the-way little Starbucks just off of Broadway, surrounded by shopping bags and actually enjoying friendly banter with the little diva.

To be fair, Lucy mused, Rachel was a far more mellowed-out version of her high school self. She didn't talk solely about herself or how hard it was to be her; instead, Lucy noticed an awful lot of "we" and "our" coming from the brunette's mouth. And gone were the teenage-toddler clothes Rachel had used to be so fond of; her style was actually _sophisticated_ now. It was all pretty damn weird, to be honest.

"Tell me about your life," Lucy blurted in the middle of Rachel's rant about coffee syrups.

"Pardon?" Rachel blinked at her in surprise.

"I barely even know what you do for a living," Lucy explained. "We used to be friends. I can't even remember the last time we talked."

Rachel sat silently for a moment, digesting this. "You're right," she said eventually. "All we've done today is…"

"Shop. And gossip." Lucy laughed a little. "We've been steering clear of our personal lives completely."

"Well, we'll have to fix that, then, won't we?" Rachel flashed Lucy the perennially perky smile she was famous for. "My name is still Rachel Barbra Berry. Gold stars are still my thing. I'm a Broadway actress and professionally trained singer; I recently landed the role of Elphaba from _Wicked._ Kurt's still with Blaine – actually, Blaine needed the apartment to himself and Kurt tonight. That's why I phoned you." She leaned across the table confidentially. "Don't tell anyone I told you this, I but I think he's _planning on proposing_."

Lucy, who'd been a good audience so far, ooh-ing and aah-ing in all the right places, couldn't muffle the snort of mirth that escaped her.

"What?" Rachel demanded. "Are you trying to tell me you think their love is silly and insignificant?"

"No," Lucy smiled. "It's you. You haven't changed a bit. You're as dramatic as ever."

"I am not!"

Lucy arched an eyebrow. Rachel evaluated her previous words and smiled sheepishly. "Maybe I am," she admitted. "But I haven't had a dramatic storm-out in six months…"

"Congratulations are in order, then," Lucy said dryly. To her credit, Rachel took it in stride. "The girl who was cast as Nessarose in the musical – you wouldn't believe her. She's like all my dramatic storm-outs at McKinley times ten…except worse."

"I think I'll have to see that to believe it."

"I'll introduce you." Rachel grinned. "You'll love her…she's a real charmer. Goes after any remotely attractive male who has the misfortune to walk on set. Speaking of which, one of my castmates saw you in the Justice League movie – he's a huge fan of yours. Would you mind signing this for him?" From her bag, Rachel produced a pad of paper and a pen.

"Is he a fan of me or me in Hawkgirl's catsuit?" Lucy accepted the pen.

"The catsuit," Rachel mumbled. "I think he has a fetish for superheroes."

"After seeing _The Justice League, _who wouldn't? I was a kickass Hawkgirl."

"Someone's very confident," Rachel teased.

"And the best part is, I didn't even have to dye my hair," Lucy said, ignoring the brunette's lighthearted jab. "Do you know how incredibly damaging hair dye actually is? After four years of being a bottle-blonde, I'm just grateful all my hair hasn't fallen out yet."

Rachel shrugged. "I told you that in junior year," she said. "Every week. Besides, you look better as your natural color."

"Thank God it got manageable," Lucy sighed. "When I was a kid, it was this awful curly auburn ball of frizz. I couldn't understand it. My mom and sister were blonde as sin, and my d – my father's hair was never as ugly as mine."

"But?" Rachel prompted.

"But then I got sick of dyeing and straightening my hair all the time, so I let it grow out naturally…and lo and behold, the auburn had faded to strawberry blonde and the curls weren't frizzy anymore. I like to think of it as karma coming full circle."

"For what?"

"Not asking Santana to beat up Joe when he got creepy and followed me around all the time."

Rachel nearly spit out her coffee. "Joe _what_?"

"Joe got creepy and followed me around all the time," Lucy repeated.

"Like – _Joe_-Joe? God-Squad Joe?" Rachel looked dumbfounded. The other woman nodded. "He couldn't handle it when I told him I didn't want to pursue a relationship at the moment because I was moving across the country to attend Yale and he…wasn't. It got so bad that he followed me to New Haven and ended up getting kicked off campus for harassment."

"You charged him for harassment? After he helped you re-learn to walk?" Rachel was beginning to hyperventilate. Lucy patted her hand. "My dorm mate reported him. She was getting sick of him showing up at all hours of the night, apparently. I wouldn't know – first week of school I moved into another dorm with a friend since the girl she was supposed to room with never showed."

"Oh." Rachel settled down. "Well, that's a little better, then."

"I didn't even find out until the police contacted me. Apparently he'd been caught trying to sneak on campus after the dean gave him the boot. He told them that I was his emergency contact."

"Wow," Rachel said appreciatively. "I'm guessing you two aren't together then?"

Lucy's eyebrow raised of its own accord. "You could say that." She leaned forward. "What about you, Miss Rachel Berry? I heard you broke up with Finn a few years ago."

"He actually broke up with me," Rachel corrected. "He said he couldn't take my drama anymore. Which is ironic because he's an actor now."

"I know," Lucy said. "He's been signed to some high-flying action flick."

"I read the gossip magazines," Rachel said peevishly. "He married a beautiful girl…even more beautiful than me…"

"Oh my God, Berry, we are not having this conversation." Lucy's eyes widened. "We may be friends but if you burst into tears over your looks in the middle of a Starbucks, I'm going to get up and walk out of here."

Rachel cracked a smile. "Sometimes I can't tell the difference between Lucy and Quinn," she said.

"Quinn was a confused teenage girl who got a terrible tattoo," Lucy said immediately. "Lucy is a successful actor who got rid of the tattoo." After a moment's thought, she added, "And a closet full of designer jeans that she'll probably never wear. And a hot boyfriend."

"A hot boyfriend?" Rachel's eyebrows shot up. "Who? The gossip magazines never mentioned _that_!"

"Shhhh! Don't say that so loudly!" Lucy threw a balled-up napkin at her friend. "I'll tell you, but you've got to keep it quiet."

"I completely understand," Rachel said. "Star-to-star confidentiality. As a brilliant young ingénue myself, I understand the importance of keeping my love life off the front cover of _People_."

Lucy laughed into her cup of coffee. "Don't tell anyone, but Matthew Lleyton asked me to be his girlfriend!" This was accompanied by the tiniest squeak of excitement.

Rachel actually squealed. The barista gave them a weird look, but they ignored it. "I can't believe it! Congratulations!"

"Thanks." Lucy smiled. "Your turn. Don't think I don't see that rock on your finger. So who's the unlucky bugger?"

"Noah," Rachel said shyly.

It was Lucy's turn to nearly spit out her coffee. "Noah Puckermann? As in Puck? As in….glee club?"

"Yes!" Rachel began bouncing in her seat. "We got together for coffee a few months after Finn and I went our separate ways. He's grown up so much, Lucy. We both got invited to Finn's wedding two years ago, and he – he asked me to be his date. I said yes." She blushed happily when Lucy, speechless, leaned across the table and gave her old friend a huge hug.

"Oh, Luuuuuuuuuuuuuucy," Rachel teased, successfully interpreting the hug. "You have a steady job, a closet bursting with beautiful clothes, and one fiiiiine boyfriend – your life is perfect too, you know."

That's when they got the phone call.

_()()()_

Blaine tapped his fingers along the edge of the steering wheel impatiently. He'd been sitting in traffic for over three hours due to what seemed to be a massive car crash at every corner, and he'd barely moved at all. He'd been stuck in front of the movie theatre for fifteen minutes, alternately staring mindlessly at the movie advertisement with Quinn's face and worrying about being late to his own surprise for Kurt.

He'd been planning this day for months. The ring, the dinner, the music, every last rose petal; everything had to be absolutely perfect. He wasn't nervous – no siree, Blaine Anderson did not get nervous. He was getting jittery because all his careful planning would fall apart if Kurt walked through the door and he wasn't there to greet him on one knee in the living room, with a ring in one hand and a vow of love on his lips. And as it was currently 8:53 and Kurt was due to get home from his fashionable something-or-other – Blaine didn't know what it was exactly, but it seemed to be some sort of conference with a French name – at nine, he really didn't see how tonight was going to go according to plan unless a fairy godmother appeared and magicked him a pumkin carriage.

And since that was very unlikely to happen, he resigned himself to staring at the poster outside the passenger-side window and preparing himself for the barrage of questions he was sure to be hit with the second he walked in the door.

He was wondering if he could get away with telling Kurt that the rose petals were all Puck's doing in Rachel's name when the taxicab lost control. Distracted as he was, he didn't notice the blaring horn until it was too late; skidding wildly on the icy road, the grungy yellow taxi careened into his Porsche with much more force than one would expect from a mere cab. On a normal day, the rear door would be dented, but seeing as New York was experiencing the iciest roads it'd seen in years, the impact sent the Porsche flying.

Blaine hissed in pain and fear as his car crumpled into the front of the movie theatre he'd just been looking at. As the hood made contact with the brick, the impact threw Blaine forward, into the steering wheel as the windshield imploded. The seatbeat, having refused to do its job when needed, slammed his head back against the seat so hard he almost passed out then and there.

He heard the people screaming before he saw the blood on his hands. Was it his? Everything was suddenly so fuzzy – he couldn't tell. He could feel himself shutting down. _Kurt_, he told himself firmly. _Focus on Kurt_. And so he did. He thought about every detail of Kurt's face; the smooth dip of his styled hair, the way his lips quirked up when he was pissed but trying to hide it. But by the time the paramedics got there, he could barely stay awake.

The very last thing he saw before his eyes closed was Quinn's face staring down at him.


End file.
